Saina gets the better of Sindhu again

World No 1 Srikanth settles for silver after going down to Chong Wei

Saina Nehwal's aggression and intensity quite literally brought top seed PV Sindhu to her knees as she ensnared the women's singles Commonwealth Games gold but K Srikanth and the debutant men's doubles pair of Satwik Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty settled for silver medals on the final day of the event here on Sunday.

In an exhilarating contest, Saina won 21-18, 23-21. The triumph marked a remarkable end to her CWG campaign this edition. She was the pillar of India's gold-winning campaign in the team championship earlier, playing every one of the singles matches due to Sindhu's ankle injury.

She had earlier claimed the 2010 Delhi Games gold.

However, in men's singles World No 1 Srikanth let slip a strong start to lose 19-21, 21-14, 21-14 to Malaysian icon Lee Chong Wei, who claimed the third individual gold of his career. He also has two mixed team gold medals to his name.

Also ending second were Satwik and Chirag, going down to Rio Olympics bronze medallist Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge of England 21-13, 21-16 in a 39-minute contest.

Overall, India signed off with their best-ever haul -- two gold, three silver and a bronze in the badminton competition. Indian shuttles had won four medals in the last two editions at Delhi and Glasgow.

The highlight of the day was the Saina-Sindhu clash, which lived up to the hype with the former World No 1, especially, bringing her A game to the court.

The brute force of Sindhu's smashes was something that Saina found hard to deal with. On the other hand, Sindhu found it tough to adjust to the delicate placement of strokes by Saina, who took the pace off the shuttle by attacking the net.

The strategy worked quite well for Saina and she raced to a 9-4 lead. As the gap widened, Saina's command on the baseline also improved. The contrasting styles of the two shuttlers made for an exhilarating contest.

A telling image of the opening game was when Sindhu was brought to her knees trying to return a smash that didn't really have any power in it but was just placed perfectly on the left corner.

"It was a neck to neck game. For me, it was even tougher because I have been playing for the last 10-12 days. She is tall, she has longer legs and covers the court better than me, I have to run here and there," second seed Saina said after the match.

Sindhu, on the other hand, called the loss just one of those days.

"I was completely fine so nothing to complain. I gave my best. It was a good week for me. Maybe today was not my day," she said.

Next one in for India was Srikanth, who had beaten the Chong Wei in the team championships final earlier in the Games, but the Malaysian rallied for a 19-21, 21-14, 21-14 triumph for his third CWG gold.

"I started well but I made too many mistakes in my defence. I gave him that early lead which should have been avoided," Srikanth said.